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Latari Elves
Greatest of the Eleven Tribes, the first people of Mennara. Latariana ascended to the stars in the great glade that lies at the heart of the Aymhelin, the great forest. Her children have dwelled beneath its emerald boughs for untold ages, living among its mighty trees and alongside countless wondrous creatures. Introduction The Elves, or Ylwe in the Latari tongue, are a strange and distant people, when viewed through the eyes of the younger races. Even more-so those Elves who are Latari. Beautiful and wise, the Latari Elves remain aloof from the day-to-day concerns of the world, safe in their great forest of the Aymhelin. They seem almost otherworldly, and if Latari legend is to be believed this is entirely true: the Elves are not creatures of the mortal world, but rather a fallen people, exiles from the heavenly realm of the Empyrean. While their status as Empyreal beings remains a subject of debate among some mortal scholars, the Elves are certainly blessed with long lives and a natural gift for magic. To the Latari, their superiority is an accepted fact: their soldiers are the most skilled, their mages the most powerful, their cities the most grand. When the jealousy of the mortal races drives the Latari Elves to war, Elven retribution is swift and the war short. When a great darkness threatens all of Mennara, it is of course the Latari who must protect their adopted home.Throughout Elven history, only once has the Aymhelin been conquered, by the Dragonlords. Since the occupation of the Dragonlords was broken, Lord Anoeth has ruled the Latari from the Caelcira palace in the hidden city of Lithilin. Lord Anoeth presides over the mightiest of the Elven nations and is the custodian of those Tears of Latariana left by the nations that were lost. At his side sits the controversial Maegan Cyndewin, a half-elven sorceress and the remaining soul with a rightful claim to the Shadow Tear, the Ynfetaar. Now, unnamed things stir once more at the borders of the Aymhelin. Lord Anoeth has not forgotten the occupation of the Dragonlords and the shame of their exile from the Empyrean drives the Latari to oppose the Ynfernael in all things, and so the armies of the Latari Elves ride forth again. They will oppose the growing darkness, and in so doing expunge some portion of the shame of their fall, and perhaps prove themselves worthy to return to the Empyrean. The Aymhelin The Aymhelin - the greatest forest in all of Mennara - stretches from the south of Terrinoth and west of the Ru to the southern ocean. Its great trees reach their ivory trunks up into pure skies, while the spreading canopies cast green-tinged shadows on the forest floor below. To the lesser races, the glades and paths of this wondrous realm would seem a paradise, inhabited by all manner of fantastical creatures that belong solely in myth and legend. But for all its beauty, the children of the Latari know the beautiful forest realm is no better than a prison. Except for the rare sylvan glade ensnared by the Fae, or the isolated murky valley infested by the Dimora, the Aymhelin is the Latari Elves' undisputed domain. Tangled undergrowth snares the uninitiated, while deep shadows hide the unnervingly watchful Elven sentinels. Their cities and palaces sweep gracefully among the trunks of the deep wood, the elegant structures and the forest balanced in a magnificent eternal dance. Only on the distant Ailatar, the Plain of Stars, does the Latari capital of Lithilin stand free from the canopies of the blessed trees. There, among the sparkling white towers and terraces, does the tale of the elves begin. The Tears of Latariana ''"Who knows not the song of Emorial? Of Latariana, our namesake, our foremother? They were the highest among us, and too proud. Condemned by our forebears' anger, their desire, we now live bound to this world, our crown of tears." ''- Loremaster Erenil, a Verdelam daughter of the Latari The Elves bear the Tears of their foremother. Their name speaks eternally of she who was first fallen and first forgiven. They are her eleven Tears, and the Latari is one of the ten, for the eleventh now lives in shadow. The Latari remember what others never knew, that before the Humans and Dwarves walked this world, the eleventh Tear brought the first darkness. In Elven it is called the Ynfetaar, the Tear of Shadow. The Ynfetaar tribe and its lord, Malcorne, was of the unrepentant who believed that as the Empyrean had let the Elven people fall, the Ynfernael would lift them up. However evil a thought, and however unthinkable that ideology may seem to the Latari, Malcorne and those other mistaken souls were their siblings, their kin. When they made war, the blood they spilled was their own. Elf slew Elf, and their battles not only scarred the lands, but tore at the fabric of the Void. One need only look to the Ru to see that not all wounds from that ancient war are healed. It was the darkness and corruption of that war which sparked the light in the unwanted children. For the disturbance in the Void caused by the War of the Shadow Tear warped many living things, and it bore fruit in Human and Dwarf, Ventala and Leonx, and so many creatures. The old songs teach that there is always light, even when darkness seems to consume all. The first Humans and Dwarves were strange creatures who initially seemed to the Elves like animals, but they walked and came to talk in their own fashion. The lives of Humans are but a single breath and those of Dwarves but one breath more. But still, these children who the Elves did not seek bring into this world art and artifice, beauty and valor. When a shaman of the Loth Caara was tempted by the Ynfernael, another great darkness came into the world and the Elves did not escape its ravages. When the Locusts were finally scattered, many Elves had died to repel the swarm. And the shadows gather once more. A duty of the Yeron Riders, one which they have kept since the War of the Locusts, remains to overfly the Ru and watch, lest the Locusts return. Each year, the riders report, "The Locust is gone, it does not swarm." And so year upon year, century upon century, these have been the good words. But the song of history changes. This year the riders saw signs of the old enemy and they spoke the words: "The Locust has returned, it swarms." A forgotten fear is rekindled in the hearts of the Elves. If the Locusts have indeed returned, it will be war. Magic of the Latari Elves are the people of light trapped in the darkness of their sin. Despite their fall, they ever seek to rejoin the First and the Empyrean. Latariana accepted her fate, and in so doing left the Latari a way by which to atone. Her Path of the Stars leads to Latariana's Door, and both are found in each Elf, waiting to be uncovered. Advancing upon her Path, and by the power of the Tears, the Ylwe may feel a touch of the Empyrean as if touching a stone heated by a sun which cannot be seen. Still, such warmth heals and protects. But there is another power, one not of the Empyrean or the Ynfernael, an energy which comes from the very Turning of the Void itself. Some Elven mages and sorceresses are scholars of this difficult-to-distill force, focusing the natural power it creates: fire, lightning, wind, hail. Study and devotion make not the sum of Elven magic. The Latari's namesake left a great power to them: Latariana's Tears, eleven powerful magical gemstones as ancient as the fall itself. The magic of the Empyrean is in them more than it is in anything else in the world, and the leaders of the original Elven tribes were each entrusted with one such Tear. Three of the ten tribes have been lost; their Tears now guarded by Lord Anoeth who sits in the Caelcira palace in the midst of the Aymhelin. At his side sits the half-elven Maegan Cyndewin, who has the remaining claim to the Ynfetaar, that Tear which came under shadow causing the true First Darkness and which disappeared after Malcorne's ultimate defeat. Category:Faction